62 pages • 2-hour read
Scarlet Morning
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and child death.
The Relationship Between Story and Truth
The first major theme examines the relationship between stories and truth, revealing the complex ways that stories, legends, and rumors can build and spread to distort and obscure truth. Stevenson also explores the way memories and accounts of events can differ from person to person, grappling with the subjective and complex nature of truth. Stevenson’s opening scene establishes the legends and stories that have spread across Dickerson’s Sea, built on a mix of fact, rumor, and supposition. In the prologue, Hestur shares her version of the legend of Queen Hail Meridian and Scarlet Morning. Stevenson presents an extended version of the legend in Chapter 3 in the passage Viola reads from a history book. Additionally, the exposition relays a version of history that proves to be inaccurate as well, though a third-person narrator is generally the arbiter of fact in a novel.
Having established the legend of Scarlet Morning as an evil, coldhearted pirate who murdered the queen and caused the Great Blow, the narrative complicates this story through Viola’s experiences with Chase, which call into question everything she has been taught about Scarlet Morning and pirates in general. When she’s poisoned by the gulls, her visions cast further doubt on the version of events Viola has learned. They reveal an enormous gap between the stories about Hail Meridian and Scarlet Morning, and the true events behind them, demonstrating the ways that the spread of rumor and the distance of time can twist, even erase, the truth.
Viola’s vision emphasizes the subjectivity of both truth and memory. Through the prose and illustrations, Stevenson positions Viola’s visions as fragmentary and disorienting, suggesting that Viola’s mind fills in the gaps to cast Chase in the role of unjustly maligned hero. Although Viola believes she’s seeing the truth in her dreams, her methods still rely on her own interpretation, piecing together isolated images and bits of memory with supposition to craft a story that fits her needs. Her vision at the end of the novel—in which she sees Chase where previously she had seen Ves—forces her to confront this distortion and grapple with whether she’s truly discovering the truth or merely constructing a competing story. In Chapter 14, Chase argues that “there is no truth” (161) and that comparing rumors and legends against memory to discern the truth is not useful because memories become distorted just as legends do. She asserts that stories survive long after memories fail. They affect the world and people’s lives in ways that truth does not. Chase’s reflection encourages the reader to question which force is more powerful—the story or the truth.
Stevenson uses salt, a substance that both preserves and destroys, as a metaphor for story. Chase argues that, like salt, the stories that spread preserve some aspects of an event and destroy others, and no one has control over which elements will survive. Later, Hail Meridian reinforces this argument, insisting that the fact that she’s alive is less important than the story that she is dead because the story gives those in power the version of the world they wanted: “They want me to be dead. They like the story better that way” (328). She notes that some would even be willing to kill her to keep that version intact. Viola’s journey hinges on her ability to let go of her preconceived notions about the past and build a new future.
The Importance of Chosen Family and Community
The second major theme argues for the value and power of chosen family, particularly in times of crisis, hardship, and loss. Stevenson employs the chosen family trope common to adventure and fantasy fiction, which depicts the family-like communities one builds by choice, grounded in shared interests, experiences, and values. In the novel, many of the characters find belonging with chosen family rather than through biological ties. Viola and Wilmur, the novel’s central relationship, initially set out from Caveat to find their biological families only to discover that their truest sense of family and belonging is in each other. Although Wilmur is especially invested in finding his biological parents, he begins to lose interest in that goal when he establishes a bond, first with the pirate crew of the Calamary Rose, and later, among the Queensmen aboard the Excelsis. When Wilmur eventually meets his biological parents, he finds the experience unsatisfying and upsetting because, although they share a biological link, they don’t have any true connection. Wilmur’s decision to jump off the ship when he hears that Viola has been looking for him in the Second City underscores his decision to value their forged connection over an inherited one.
Unlike Wilmur, Viola, who is naturally more reserved and less gregarious, finds it difficult to establish connections with others—her character arc sees her growing from a place of isolation to one of connection and collective care. Her tenuous partnership with Chase, built on the need for survival, provides her with her first taste of connection outside of her formative relationship with Wilmur. Later, her friendship with Elvey and the other children on Wilder’s Green introduces her to a chosen family dynamic rooted in loyalty and support. Stevenson makes the deep bonds forged in this chosen family dynamic explicit through the communal efforts to comfort Elvey in her grief after the gull attack. Viola watches as a crowd circles Elvey, holding her in her despair. Viola reflects that this kind of camaraderie allows them to pass “shared sorrow from one to another until the weight of it [is] dispersed, a little lighter with so many hands lifting it up” (369). This image provides a key example of the importance of communal support and care, particularly for those without access to support from their families of origin.
Stevenson emphasizes examples of non-traditional family dynamics to reinforce the importance of communal support. In the land of Dickerson’s Sea, scarcity and loss are the norm. Communities are isolated, children have been left without parents, nature has become unnaturally dangerous, and many people live without sufficient shelter, food, or other necessities. Within this environment, Stevenson highlights the camaraderie of the crew on the Calamary Rose, who accept Wilmur (and Viola) into their ranks without comment or complaint. Similarly, the children on Wilder’s Green live with enormous scarcity and loss, yet share their meager resources with Viola with eagerness and joy. Elvey tells Viola, “We’re all piratekind, just like you. Most of us here lost our families to the Massacre…Now we take care of each other” (295). All of these examples support the novel’s argument that collective care and community are necessary for the survival of all.
The Burdens of Inherited Failure
The third major theme explores the burden placed on children who experience the consequences of the failures and mistakes of the adults who came before them. In the novel, though many people have suffered great loss and trauma, it is the children who carry the burden of a world that has been broken by the adults in the narrative, especially (but not only) Chase, Hail Meridian, Ves, and Herman. These adults directly caused the collapse of the government, the Great Blow, and the Pirate Massacre. The children—Viola, Wilmur, Elvey, Rhosymedre, and the children of Wilder’s Glen suffer the devastating consequences of these actions—burdens placed on their shoulders without their consent or control. The children of Wilder’s Green have lost their families and live in squalor on the edge of the city. Wilmur and Viola have both lived their entire lives as orphans, lost their only adult guardian, and have been dragged into a dangerous adventure by Chase.
Meanwhile, the adults who created this broken world consistently abdicate any responsibility for fixing it. Hail Meridian remains in hiding as the oracle Tal dei Tali, rather than reveal that she is alive. Chase, according to some rumors, went into hiding in the Bleachfields for many years and has only recently returned to gather a new crew and find the Book, working toward an as-yet-unstated goal. Herman, the man directly responsible for the Pirate Massacre, has spent the last 15 years as a “hollow, passionless man” (385) living in the world he helped to break, without doing anything to help fix it. Ves, of course, is absent from the narrative entirely except in Viola’s visions, underscoring the fact that the novel’s young characters are left to pick up the pieces of his failed scheme.
Viola's decision to take on this responsibility and burden herself is directly motivated by the apathy of the adults around her. She says, “Everyone here has already given up […] like the things that happened before I was even born are just too big to fix. […] Someone’s got to do something…and if no one else will, then maybe that someone has to be me” (295). Her determination and bravery highlight the strength and resilience of children in times of crisis. However, though she has voluntarily accepted this burden, other characters continue to increase it rather than help to lighten it. For instance, the mogrim warns her that the Silver Circle will eventually consume everything and demands to know what she intends to do about it, placing the safety of all of Dickerson’s Sea in her hands. Hail Meridian places the ultimate responsibility on Viola by declaring her the heir. Now she is expected to be not only a hero and savior, but also a leader, with no preparation, instruction, or warning. During Viola’s coronation, Stevenson suggests that the camaraderie and solidarity of chosen family as essential to shouldering the burdens of inherited failure. Herman, one of the adults most responsible for the current crisis, agrees to stay and support Viola in her reign, accepting his own responsibility to help fix the problems he helped cause.
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